Current weather

Shipp: Redistricting: How to get lost with a map

Federal judges are lucky. They aren't subject to recall or election. And they don't have to prove their intellectual skills.

Bill

Shipp

more Shipp columns

www.billshipp.com

Otherwise, the federal jurists responsible for the just-released Georgia redistricting maps might be in serious trouble in parts of Georgia.

Unless the court's House and Senate district maps are substantially altered, they are likely to create political problems for the entire state. Elections may have to be rescheduled. A passel of new litigation is certain to emerge.

On the other hand, the court's maps, tracking the state's population growth, established numerous open districts, especially in North Georgia, that ought to bring fresh talent to the General Assembly.

Even so, the court's work disturbs. The judges are fulfilling a constitutional assignment of the General Assembly.

Why should you and I care if the legislative bozos in the Gold Dome have abdicated their legal responsibility - once again - and allowed the federal courts to assume their lawmaking roles and create what many consider a mess?

For starters, the court (and the legislature) may have wrought such confusion to the redistricting process that the issue could remain alive for the remainder of the decade. Georgia citizens are always the losers in such inside-baseball political games. Legislators will continue to focus on their own district lines instead of fixing our failing schools, our overburdened transportation system and our bankrupt budget. Additional millions will be spent on legal fees trying to sort out this tingle-tangle.

A cursory look at the judicial maps suggests the court did little more than haul in a computer, pour into it columns of numbers and then push the start button. Out popped two brand-new legislative maps. Just as the court had wanted, the computer's districts are mostly compact. The screwball, outlandish shapes imposed during the Barnes administration have disappeared. Yet, in etching the less ghastly configurations, the computer somehow failed to note that the myriad numbers it crunched were symbols for people.

A larger dash of human brainpower added to the computer's artificial intelligence might have produced different and fairer schemes.

As it now stands, the judicial maps:

Restore "retrogression," the legal term for dilution of black voting power, to a level not seen since the days of Jim Crow. Numerous senior black legislators have been thrown into districts that place their political futures in serious jeopardy. The Justice Department would have vetoed a similar legislature-made map before the ink was dry. "This (judicial map) is the kind of redistricting that inspired passage of the federal Voting Rights Act," says one legal sage, who happens to vote Republican.

In Columbus, House Rules Chairman Calvin Smyre, perhaps the most powerful black legislator in Georgia history, was thrown into a new legislative district with another black committee chairman, Carolyn Hughley, and Tom Buck, white chairman of the Appropriations Committee. The court's computer spewed out this amazing three-way conflict even as it produced two open-seat districts on either side of the Smyre-Hughley-Buck mishmash.

In metro Atlanta, several well-established black lawmakers were tossed into districts against white incumbents. In another instance, Education Committee Chairman Bob Holmes must now face Rep. Tyrone Brooks, chairman of the Georgia Association of Black Officials.

(We dwell on the problems created for minority lawmakers because their predicaments create the most direct path to more prolonged and expensive litigation.)

Created equal headaches for white lawmakers and the GOP. Senate Republican President Pro Tem Eric Johnson, the guy who really runs the Senate, was thrown into an elongated district, pitting him against longtime Democrat Rene Kemp of Hinesville. The computer split the town of Hinesville to create this awkward arrangement while leaving open districts all around. In fact, the court's computer showed little regard for county or even precinct borders. It shattered them left and right, but was careful not to breach railway lines and interstate highways.

To further complicate matters, a high-profile Republican legislative candidate has spread the word around the Capitol that he is kin to one of the federal judges and knows what the courts will do before anyone else does. As this is written, Democratic lawyers are pondering how to use this bit of intelligence in a legal appeal.

If you enjoy playing the blame game, these new maps represent your Super Bowl. Blame Gov. Roy Barnes' minions for insisting on such unreasonable districts that the court stepped in. Blame Gov. Sonny Perdue for failing to exercise a modicum of leadership in trying to help the legislature redraw more appropriate districts. Blame both Republican and Democratic legislative leaders for refusing to compromise and walking away from their constitutional roles.

P.S.: To be fair, the federal courts are not equipped to draw legislative districts at lightning-like speeds, which is what occurred in this instance. However, dear reader, don't be misled by assertions that the court's decision to discard some seasoned incumbents willy-nilly is a good idea. Firing elected officials is the prerogative of the electorate, not the judiciary. Oddly, the judges show that they understood this maxim when they left intact our equally weird congressional districts.